The present application relates to an apparatus that retains a bed liner in the cargo bed of a vehicle such as a pickup truck.
Various patents have been granted in the field of truck bed liners. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,820 (“the '820 patent”) (the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference) discloses a fastener assembly for holding a bed liner in a pickup truck bed. A perspective view of the fastener disclosed in the '820 patent is shown on FIG. 4.1. The fastener assembly includes a faceplate and a trough-shaped wall that supports a linearly movable clamp member. The clamp member can be rotated within the trough to swing a clamp arm upwardly to a generally vertical position where it is aligned with the downwardly extending lip on the top of a truck bed side wall. A screw extends through the trough into a threaded hole in the clamp member. The screw can be rotated to rotate the clamp arm and move it linearly along the trough such that surface 30 is engaged in a clamping arrangement with the inside of the rail lip. The fastener assembly is a self-contained unitary structure that can be installed through a circular opening in the bed liner side wall after the liner is placed in position within the truck bed.
Pickup trucks normally have cargo-securing tie-down devices that are supplied as original equipment. The device disclosed in the '820 patent, however, does not include a tie-down device for securing cargo. Moreover, after the fastener assembly and bed liner is installed according to the '820 patent, the bed liner covers the original-equipment tie-down devices. Thus, to use one or more of the supplied tie-down devices, holes must be cut in the bed liner, which holes necessarily should be larger than the tie-down device. Water, sand, rocks or other debris may accumulate in the holes and damage the pickup truck bed. For example, holes may allow water into the space between the bed liner and the bed, corroding the bed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,203,090 (“the '090 patent”) (the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference) provides a tie-down member but presents other problems. The '090 patent discloses a retainer apparatus for securing a bed liner to a pickup truck bed having a plurality of factory-installed tie-down members. The tie-down members are removed, exposing factory-drilled holes containing threaded members. The retainer apparatus of the '090 patent includes retaining plates that have holes corresponding to the factory-drilled holes in the bed. First, the retaining plates are installed into the bed holes. The bed liner is then placed into the pickup truck bed. The bed liner has holes that correspond to additional holes in the retaining plates, and the bed liner is secured through its holes onto the additional retaining plate holes. Tie-down members are attached to the bed liner in alignment with corresponding holes in the front and rear retaining plates. The tie-down members include a base member with a plurality of holes that align with corresponding holes on the bed liner, and a fold-down ring that is pivotally attached to the base member and that has a tie-down hole through it. The major disadvantage to this design is that it is only usable with certain truck bed designs. If the pickup truck bed does not have holes at locations roughly corresponding to the holes in the bed liner, the retaining plates cannot be used to fasten the bed liner to the pickup bed. Otherwise, to use the apparatus of the '090 patent to secure a bed liner to a pickup truck bed, new holes are drilled in the truck bed, which is not preferred because drilling of new holes is an invasive installation process that may damage the truck bed. The possible applications of the apparatus of the '090 patent are therefore limited.
Thus, there is a need for a retainer apparatus or fastener assembly for securing a bed liner to a wide variety of pickup truck beds without requiring either factory-drilled or consumer-drilled holes in the truck beds. Moreover, there is a need for a fastener assembly that provides a tie-down device for securing cargo within the truck bed.